Heart screening work takes us to all corners of the state to work with all kinds of people. This Heart Month we take a moment to share their stories of why heart screening matters. Recently I connected with a mom whose son died about a year ago while finishing up a training run near their house. Sometimes it helps to talk with others who have been have also lost a child, so I offered to connect her with other Texas parents who also lost a child to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). As I started to type the list, it just kept getting longer and longer. We’ve met a lot of people in the last few years who had a child experience SCA and now share our mission to detect and prevent. While I love working with every one of them, I just wish the list wasn’t so long. We hold close friendships with other families whose children experienced SCA. Together we sponsor community heart screenings, fundraisers and other events to help increase awareness of this preventable killer. We support each other and travel many miles to volunteer at each other’s events. Our first DFW-area community screening event in September, Healthy Hearts DFW, was a fantastic partnership between our fellow foundations: Ryan Powell Foundation, Holden Strong Awareness Campaign, Run for Sarah, the Fiorelli family, with Fort Worth ISD and athletic trainer Jason Braud supporting on the school side. In the Houston area, we worked alongside Mason’s Heart, The Cameron Juniel Foundation and Do It for Damani to host a bunch of screenings all of us have held, both community screenings and in schools. But our partnerships don’t end here in Texas. Scott and Melody traveled all the way to Pennsylvania in October to help another family, the Walkers, promote their own version of HB76 - Cody’s Law named for their daughter, Peyton. In the schools, we mostly work with athletic trainers and school nurses. They all work incredibly hard with incredibly long hours to make sure the young people in their care are healthy. Universally, they are the best kind of people, and we are so fortunate to call them our partners. This Heart Month I hope you’ll join us on Facebook and on our website as we highlight the heart screening stories of our school partners, our foundation friends, and the families we screen – all of whom make all our work possible. And if you have a friend or loved one who has been touched SCA and would like to be connected to our amazing community of families, please reach out to us. We would love to connect with you. info@codystephensfoundation.org
-Mary DeBauche, Executive Director